Hawaii Tsunami 2010

My day started at five…IN THE MORNING, with a text from my mom asking Are you under a tsunami warning? what’s the reports from your end?

I don5 know. still sleeping. It’s 5

8.8 IN CHILE – check your local – SAID WILL HIT AT SIX YOUR TIME.

That got me up! Within seconds Joey calls from work saying they’re stuck there, the highway’s been shut down because of a fatal motorcycle accident. Then I start getting facebook messages and texts and phone calls, and to be honest, I wasn’t scared until I sensed that everyone else was! I was never worried about mine and the kids’ safety because we are, what they call, “up country”. I was just worried about Joey and what would happen with him, and that we’d be without him. All I could think was I WANT HIM HOME. I wasn’t even paying attention to the news and the fact that the entire island was stocking up on food and gas. I knew the tsunami would never reach us, so no need to bother with those things. Once Joey made it home (the freeway closure was behind him) he called his good friend that lives in the evacuation zone and then we headed down to the beach to help them move things to higher ground.

It was around seven when we went down and our road was already starting to fill up with evacuees. The tsunami wasn’t expected to hit until after eleven, and everyone on our side of the island seemed to be taking it seriously, and I didn’t see anyone panicking. The roads were pretty clear way up here, but Joey did say the two lane highway, Farrington, out to this point was very busy, but moving good.

Makaha Beach was deserted except for a few lone diehard surfers, and a plane flying overhead blasting a loud siren for all the people that live "on the beach”. They have no electricity and quite possibly could not know what’s about to hit. Up at our place the sirens were pretty weak but our friends down here were jolted awake by them.

On our way back up the hill I was trying to get some quick shots of the evacuees along the roadside when one woman said, Look at dat bitch..taking pic-tures! That’s all we need is to give the locals another reason to not like this Haole.

Our friends ended up evacuating to our place, and at eleven we were standing on the street corner at the top of the hill to see what’s going to happen. I expected the entire complex to be out there looking but I think we were the ONLY ONES. Everyone else were evacuees. There was no way I wasn’t going to be out there!

People were set up in the ditch like it was a day at the beach and they were relaxed and enjoying themselves.

When we’d already been out there an hour and hearing reports that it was finally starting to show some action over on the Big Island, we knew we had to wait at least that much longer still. I hardly took my eyes off the water because I did not want to miss anything. The kids were already over it.

Cars were parked everywhere on our street, including in the bus stops and center divider.

At one point the kids found a lizard and Jewel was ecstatic. Then I made her let the little kids hold him too because she couldn’t keep running away from them all day. She didn’t want to let them “because they’re only five.” Which translated to “she’s not responsible enough and will drop him!” Which is exactly what she did. The rest of the day was a big fat sad face for Jewel.

This picture screams to me, The Natives Are Restless!

I loved all these little island kids playing with big sticks and no one getting hurt…. and no one yelling at them to stop. Where’s all this panic the news was reporting?

Finally we started to see some action in the water. First I saw one single solitary large wave, and then probably half an hour later I started noticing this white circle in the ocean.

It started off as a solid circle and then very gradually started to spread out.

The weird thing was..no one else was commenting on this. Or else they’re all just very very quiet. Or else, it’s, you know…normal.

While I was keeping my eye on that growing circle I notice the family in front of me.

 

How sweet is that? I half expected people to be stressed out, scared, nervous, agitated. I saw none of that.

We decided to walk down the hill a bit to see if we could get a better view. We can see the circle has gotten really wide and thin now……and there are whales riding right in it! We also saw the line of cars down to the coast………… doesn’t stop.

 

Jewel did find the one empty spot to sit down and sulk in, though.

After a couple hours we figured there wasn’t going to be anything more to see so we went back to the condo to wait for them to lift the evacuation order. Around five Jewel and I went down to Makaha Beach to see if there was anything even noticeable on the beach.

Up here you’d never even know this road housed hundreds of people just hours earlier.

And peacocks stood where we stood all afternoon.

And the beach was quiet and welcoming.

Looks like the water didn’t get any higher than any other day. The only difference were the lack of sunbathers for a gorgeous Saturday afternoon, and a lack of waves.

I still can’t believe we live in Hawaii, and now we experience a tsunami. A TSUNAMI! 2010 is proving to be quite an exciting year, and we’ve barely just begun. I CANNOT wait to see what the rest of the year has in store for us.

We finished off our day getting our ankles wet in a post tsunamic ocean and if I hadn’t been so wiped out from a long day, I may just have taken Jewel up on her request to get our suits on and go for a swim.

Honolulu on Dwellable

Never too old to cry to your Mama

We started off driving west on the I-80, but about sixty miles into South Dakota Joey made a last minute decision to head South and visit his friend in a small town in Nebraska. The same small town we were in last year when the boys met a pair of sisters, so we told them we'd try to get in touch with them and arrange to see them. What does Jonas say? "Why was I cursed with such good looks?"

We pulled in really late to the campground to find it was one big mud pit. We ended up staying in a road side picnic area just outside of town and in the morning a different friend of Joey's recognized the bus and came over to say hello, so while the kids and I hung in the bus at the local laundromat, doing laundry and trying to reach the girls, Joey got to spend the afternoon with the guys, playing drums, cussing, talking story and talking welding. Eventually we moved over to the local park, and spent the rest of the day perched in our lawn chairs watching the kids play.

One of Joey's friends (and brand new dad) also hung in the park with us and picked our brains on unschooling and living on the road. It's great to see somebody else so excited for their kid's future.

Before long we gave up on connecting with the girls (they were on a beach vacation) and just as we were about to leave, a nice lady from across the street knocked on our door to let us know there had been spotters in the area and if needed we can join them in their basement.

"What are spotters?"

"Tornados"

"Holy Crap! We're outta' here, thanks for the offer, though!"

We stop for gas outside of town and when I told the clerks we were heading south they said they wouldn't, they'd wait it out first. I told Joey that massive tornadoes hit Kearney and it's headed this way. He decides that's far away and we're not in danger, so we're going. By now I turn off the satellite radio to hear local news and I'm hearing nothing but scary weather reports. The skies look fine, though, and I guess since Joey didn't get the info himself off the weather channel, it wasn't true. Then it started raining, and I called my Mom.
"Mom, I just want to let you know we're heading straight into a tornado. If you don't hear from me, at least you'll know where to find me."

Then the rain started falling harder and horizontally and I made the fastest U-turn in history...right through someone's yard. Joey, couldn't turn around there and had to keep on going until he found a safe enough spot. I called my Mom back...bawling like a baby now. I repeated to her all the damage the tornadoes had already done and how we were headed straight into it's path. Just what she wanted to hear, I'm sure. We ended up waiting it out back in that town we had gotten gas in, the one that I tried to wait it out to begin with. After about thirty minutes we headed back out, now having to avoid huge downed trees on the highway. We wanted to get to a rest area along the Interstate because they have shelters, but the Interstate is shut down, so we have to continue on this small highway that is now also full of Interstate traffic. I gave Jacob my camera and asked him to get a shot of the skies over Kearney.

I noticed that he was zooming in, and I wanted him to zoom out to get the whole thing, but what he got was ten times better! I'll never try directing him again, I think the boy's got a good eye.

We did finally make it to the Interstate, and spent the rest of the night watching the lightning storms. Other than one storm hitting us during the night, it ended up being a nice, safe, quiet night.


The next morning we saw some of the damage that was done outside of Kearney and saw first hand how close we'd come to ending up just like that barn.


Lesson learned: Trust my instincts and run like hell!